Artificial Intelligence scientist using AI to ‘empower’ Collins Aerospace employees

Joseph Engler is so personally connected to the world of Artificial Intelligence, he even named the AI he created after a person — called Allison.

“Allison stands for ‘All in Unison’ and is our centralized AI that we built in Digital Technology, capable of hosting various AI solutions to help empower employees,” Engler says.

Engler is the principal technical fellow and chief AI scientist at Collins Aerospace, an RTX business, which is an aerospace and defense company. Serving as technical fellow for just over a year, he has been in the chief AI scientist role for six years at Collins but has worked with machine learning and AI for over 20 years.

“I am researching new, more powerful ways in which AI and complexity science can benefit Collins, its customers, and possibly the world beyond. I take great inspiration from nature to develop novel algorithms that mimic not just the human mind, as one would suspect with AI, but also assessing the rich complexity that is found in the world around us,” he explains.

In addition to making AI smarter and more robust, Engler is committed to aligning the technology with human values.

“I work to develop new mathematical ways in which computers can start to approach human level understanding and learning,” he says.

Before joining Collins Aerospace, Engler was an associate research scientist in the University of Iowa Operator Performance Laboratory, where he developed several novel machine learning algorithms for classification of human physiology. He holds bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from the Franciscan University, and master’s and doctorate degrees in industrial engineering from the University of Iowa.

Allison is a set of software agents focused on solutions. The program, Engler says, “mainly benefits Collins’ internal community, such as making employees’ jobs easier and exploring ways AI can utilize historic data to make future predictions.”

Here’s how it works, for example. Digital assistants can help predict the next best step for business processes and aerospace/defense markers. This drives better strategic planning and risk mitigation by:

“Allison supports numerous internal efforts. We’re focused on optimizing performance within our business. Specifically, I build AI algorithms that can make the worker more productive in their current role,” Engler adds.

Years ago, Engler read a book called “Chaos: The Making of New Science.” Already enamored by math and computer science, he cites this book as really sparking his interest.

“In the book, the author James Gleick talked about really strange stuff like fractal worlds and self-organized systems. The math was so simple but so complex. As I pursued these complex objects, I became aware of other facets of complexity that led me to machine learning and AI, such as bio-inspired computing,” Engler says.

Why is AI worth pursuing in his view?

“There are so many mundane tasks that bog us down on a daily basis. We can’t always think creatively and maximize our intellect, until we can offload some of the more basic tasks. Day-to-day routines out of the way, we have a workforce that is more powerful and more creative,” Engler details.

He says AI can see things we can’t and understand patterns we can’t always see by devouring vast amounts of data. In addition, it can detect minuscule objects humans can’t see clearly. So, AI is an augmentation tool that can help us free up time to use our intellect as much as possible.

But what about any risks?

“A lot of the concern around AI comes from misunderstanding and misinformation. While it can be smarter than humans in terms of completing specific tasks, it can’t do generalized tasks. A given AI can win at a computer game, but that same AI can’t write an email. It’s not a human replacement,” Engler says.

The biggest risk from his perspective is the potential for privacy loss, corporate or personal.

“When you use an open-source system like Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) for example, there is inherent risk that your data is stored and possibly sent to parties that you do not know,” Engler says. “Beyond privacy concerns, misinformation is a possible concern. Not necessarily derived from ill-intent, but AI is a predictive tool by design — it can’t discern between (what’s) true and false, so in situations where AI is predicting things, they may not be true facts.”

Engler says not only can AI enhance our ability to solve challenging issues, but it can also positively impact a company’s bottom line.

“Broadly speaking for Collins Aerospace, incorporating AI into predictive maintenance can reduce costs and materials needed for fielded equipment, improve airport experiences for passengers, and provide rapid decision making for commanders in the battlespace,” he shares.

Engler’s currently writing a book and using AI to develop outlines, which help him organize his thoughts and suggest topics he may have left out.

“Companies writing job descriptions can use AI to generate more appealing language to improve hiring practices, and we’ve already seen enormous promise using AI in the medical field,” he says.

The key, Engler says, is to keep it open source. “Like the saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’ it takes a village to keep AI under control. Overwhelmingly, the humans who want to use AI tools to do good largely outweigh those who want to do evil.”

“AI is not an existential threat — it’s currently not, nor in the foreseeable future will be, capable of doing so,” he says.